The Navy (once again)

[smusebaer]

Just an Idea: If the AI only builds Pivateers, than it´s impossible for AI to invade, because normal units can´t be transported with them, as long as they are hidden national units.
the earlyer Ships can´t transport without the crewupgrade.
Perhaps that a destruktiv loop. AI needs Trooptransport. The cheapest unit is the privateer but that is hidden national, so it can´t transport units. So it builds the next unit with transportcapacity, a privateer. Perhaps the privateer should have no transport and another Midgame transportvessel would be good.

 

[Nimbus]

I am to the point where I would like to see Privateers made into a national unit with the corresponding limit of 4 units. I really think this would help the AI build other boats and make them more likely to get better at transporting/invading at sea.

 

[marioflag]

In my opinion the main problem why navy is so uninteresting is because FfH2 is simply more land based than Civ Vanilla.Building ships give you simply no strategic advantage and often you have no use for them. To be more interesting navies simply need that FfH2 has more sea based resources, menaces and other toys which can influence balancement among all civilizations in a game. Ship types or promotions are a lesser problem.

 

[Fafnir13]

So the dragonship is gone with next patch. Step in the right direction? I think so. Twas a useless unit and trimming away some of the fat could help to focus things. Always seemed like such a weird thing tacked on at the start. Also glad to see that now sailing can take the place of horse riding to get tech trading.
Still a long way to go for making FFH2 ship stuff as good as the rest of it, but at least it's taken care of a few early game oddballs.

 

[kenken244]

I like the idea of ships having ranged attacks. It would make naval superiority helpful when attacking or defending, otherwise you will get bombarded with units you can't easily kill.

 

[Bad Player]

One issue that makes spending hammers (and gold in maintenance) on ships rather than land units is that ships cross between continents too fast for you to intercept with your own navy. If ships had a built in sentry II promotion (water visibility only) then your navy would have a better chance of intercepting an opposing navy/invasion force.

That would make spending hammers+gold on ships much more attractive (because they would become much more useful).

 

[SwordofStriker]

This is a question for those of you who say the AI does not build and actively use up to date navies and pretty much only builds privateers:

What patch are you using?

The reason I ask is because I am using the most up to date patch and the AI is not only building a variety of ships, but is crushing me with them. I am number 2 in score and number 2 in power. Number 1 is far, far ahead of me and is the one schooling me in naval warfare at the moment.

I'm fighting against privateers, dragonships, frigates, and galleons, and the AI just landed a HUGE invasion force in my lands. All this is after it went on a pillaging spree of all my seafood resources by the way. Fortunately, the AI has crushed my navy so completely that my invasion force is still there to defend.

Though the AI could certainly use it's navy more, or even better, it's certainly using it adequately enough to prevent me from mounting any sort of continental invasion.

 

[Ahriman]

I wish that naval units had a civ2-style zone of control, where they could automatically stop transports trying to slip over to your coastline to disgorge huge armies.

The main problem is, IRL you can't just transport some guys over the ocean and dump them; you have to maintain naval control in order to keep supply lines over; an army is useless without food and weapon supplies, no matter how large.

But no supply lines in civ....

It would be cool if you had naval traderoutes like you have roads on land, which provide trade bonuses, link resources and increase movement but can be pillaged or blockaded. And you don't get the movement bonus in enemy territory, like roads.
So, you could make naval units ~2 move units but they move much faster on trade routes in friendly or neutral territory, but not in enemy territory.

Make them a lot like the trade routes in Final Frontier! AI is coded to be able to use them.

 

[Bad Player]

Yes I've suggested having sea trade routes actually have little vessels running between cities which can be attacked (e.g. by privateers) so therefore a navy to protect them would be a good investment.

 

[Durin]

What i would like to see :

Flying dutchman

Phantom fleet

Barbarian pirate fleet

and possibly to make it worth one or two special goodies (like pool of tears) that could be put on the other side of the world and that would push players to the colonization.

I think also that if we start to give ships long range bombing capacity, we must give to the players the possibility to shoot back (coastal forts ?).

And last, if we are going to push the sea world to his best, put one or two civ that can't colonize earth but benefit from the sea. I don't know if it is possible but it could be an idea.

regards

 

[Camber]

We have dragons limited for good reason, but would it be possible to have something else that flew and could do bombing runs (like Griffins), and then have a type of ship that could carry them? I miss Aircraft Carriers terribly.

 

[Bad Player]

Maybe there could be a low chance of a barbarian pirate fleet (e.g. 20 ships) spawning in a map. It'd create some excitement for sure!

 

[arkham4269]

What I would like is that later in game the see would get more dangerous [due to the AC and hell spreading] Maybe a see-hell terrain [that has no graphics, I know] could have a chance of spawning see monsters[barbarian or demonic]. The more hell terrain [see-hell terrain] the dangerous the sees are.

Well as mentioned earlier, from Alpha Centauri, you could have some sort of 'evil kelp' that would start to spread, sort of like a water forest. These squares might be able to do damage to a ship (sort of like radiation zones in Final Frontier) Obviously this 'evil kelp' wouldn't be very good for food. Of course the question would be, could the work boats clear it our or would it have to be removed by magical means? Plus, over in the Fury Road mod, someone posted that out there is a graphic pack that makes the water look 'evil' in that dark and greenish way. So even if you don't do anything else, maybe even the seas in turn in a Hell Terrain zone.

Not only that, but they might also spawn some sort of water demons over time or at least attract water monsters.

 

[arkham4269]

Yes I've suggested having sea trade routes actually have little vessels running between cities which can be attacked (e.g. by privateers) so therefore a navy to protect them would be a good investment.

The thing I miss the most about the old Civ III Rise & Rule mode is that when a Pirate/Privateer took a ship, there was a good chance the ship would become a "Prize" - these ships were just a 'bad' galleon similar to how a slave is a 'bad' worker. However, if you took them to a port and destroyed them, they were a BIG hammer bonus. I think that ships should be able to do this. Certainly pirate ships could do this, but historically, navy's did this to their enemies so any warship should be able to potentially make a prize out of pirate ships or enemy ships. This was good way to help build cities on small islands that lacked much in the way of generating hammers. Plus, since slaves already have the function of being able to used to speed up construction, it should be an easy tweak to do.

 

[deadliver]

I have seen galleys, triremes and privateers but nothing else from the AI. At least the AI seems to use the privateers effectively for blockading and occasional pillaging. Also...one of the big modders I think it is Magister or Vehem have hell terrain on water called Black Water. This concept was so cool that they made a cartoon about it with these guys' permission. Seriously it is a cool concept!

 

[xienwolf]

Now I want someone to make a Monkeybird unitgraphic

 

[Polobo]

Tanget: I've noticed that hawks cannot board ships (the aircraft carrier reminded me to post this), even if they are loaded onto a hunter (I guess this qualifies as an aircraft carrier...); I presume this is for balance reasons but it does seem quite illogical nonetheless. Is there a way to mod this restriction out in the XML?

 

[Drakmondt]

I like the idea of ships having ranged attacks. It would make naval superiority helpful when attacking or defending, otherwise you will get bombarded with units you can't easily kill.

I have used Arcane ships with fireballs in the isthmus and while moving forward on the coast always successfully, and would not like to miss them ...
maybe the fireballs could get more range throw the promotions

 

[Grand Seeker]

If you dominate the navy you could have 'mages' casting spells from the ships
and then all your mages are SAFE from assasins. If you dont have access to fire you could throw in some arcane barrage to cast some fireballs.

I say that there do exist ways to use the navy to support a land war.

One of the problems is speed: it just seems to slow, when a raiders horsemens can move 9 spaces each turn. But if you increase the speed of your navy, you can do your thing and move your ships to safty long before the enemies navy could react.

Vision would help. Could we make the arcane barrage a carrier so that it can carry birds? Would be a simple and wonderfull addition. And kind of fit to I think.

Another ide is when loading or unloading units the ship could move no further. Or
to be able to unload units the ships could not have moved before. That way ships
could be made realy realy fast without any problems. Cuz you still have to wait 1 turn before unloading units.

I also find it borring that the ManOwar is so dominating at the end.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Tanget: I've noticed that hawks cannot board ships (the aircraft carrier reminded me to post this), even if they are loaded onto a hunter (I guess this qualifies as an aircraft carrier...); I presume this is for balance reasons but it does seem quite illogical nonetheless. Is there a way to mod this restriction out in the XML?

Not really anything you can do, at least without serious SDK changes. No unit with cargo can be cargo at the same time, and units can only carry units of one domain (land, air, sea). (If they carry specialunit type cargo, like bird, they can only carry units of that domain and specialunit type.)

I asked Kael to change this a long time ago, but he said it could cause too many problems.